April and May 2022 Books

The Great

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

I’ve made quite the point recently about short books. Too many feel rushed and unfinished, the themes half-baked, the characters two-dimensional. But then along comes a book like Train Dreams, and you remember the power of an excellent novella. This one is about Robert Grainier, a jack-of-all-trades type of labourer living and working in early twentieth century in America. We follow him over the course of his long life, jumping back and forth between various episodes, coming to a rather breath-taking conclusion. At the same time, we witness the American West at one of its most transformative periods. This is one of those books where every word counts. No moment is insignificant, allowing this short novel to feel expansive and spacious. For that reason, I think it’s worth taking your time with this book and really allowing yourself to be absorbed into its world (though I’d also recommend one or two sittings as its power is cumulative). The best literature for me is one where you have to read between the lines and puzzle together the themes. I love when an author doesn’t explain too much, but if you know you don’t enjoy this kind of thing, then I think this one will probably not quite land for you.

The prose! It’s gorgeous. A sentence might start and you think you know where it’s going and then it will flip inside out, twisting its way into your heart. Johnson conjures up the landscape of the American West beautifully which we all know I’m a sucker for (if you read and loved In the Distance by Hernan Diaz, you’ll like this one, too). By picking a few episodes in Grainier’s life, Johnson shows us what constitutes a life; seemingly trivial events that nonetheless remain burned into one’s psyche, the heroic things we do, but also the most shameful. It’s about love and loss; it’s about the transformation of a landscape and a man’s inability to find a place either in nature or in society. But after all, “God needs the hermit in the woods as much as He needs the man in the pulpit.”

Angels by Denis Johnson

Feeling buoyed by my love of Train Dreams, I moved right onto this as I also had it on my shelf. It is a very different novel (and was Johnson’s debut) and I actually almost put it down about forty pages in. I just didn’t know if I had the emotional wherewithal for it because this is one of those utterly depressing novels that is pretty much guaranteed to fill you with abject despair. It’s about “two born losers”, Jamie and Bill, who meet on a Greyhound bus. Jamie is fleeing her husband with her two daughters, and Bill is just… being Bill I guess. Travelling from city to city, stumbling in and out of dive bars and motels and taking part in the occasional criminal activity for some quick cash. For the first forty pages I thought the whole novel would be like this; vignettes of these two getting up to little more than nothing, drinking and taking drugs and being generally unpleasant to each other and everyone else (any scene involving the little girls hurt my heart physically). But then the plot really takes off, after one of the most distressing sexual assault incidents I’ve ever read in a novel (HUGE trigger warning on this whole book for just about everything). I don’t think I’m really selling it to you, but you do need to be prepared for it.

But once again – the PROSE. It really lights up this book, screwing into your brain, shackling your emotions to these down-and-out characters. Johnson clearly had close personal experiences with people like Jamie and Bill because they jump off the page. But it is in the final fifty pages or so that the real gut-wrenching stuff comes in. I wouldn’t want to spoil it, but I felt like I’d been hollowed out when I put it down. Another excellent book that asks if anyone is truly irredeemable and shines a light on those most vulnerable in American society. Just be prepared for some pain!

Either/Or by Elif Batuman

Ah, the follow-up to The Idiot. I was nervous for this one because I did so love The Idiot and I wasn’t really expecting Batuman to write more of Selin’s story. Now that I’ve read this I’m sure there will be more. And I wonder whether she’ll ever write anything else.

This book asks interesting questions about what a novel should be like to read. I think this book is clever, but did I unreservedly enjoy every moment reading it? Not always. For one, Selin is growing up, and is becoming more caustic as a result. I found some of her takes to be more uncomfortable and occasionally spiteful when contrasted with the naivety of The Idiot. I had actually just ‘re-read’ The Idiot by listening to it, so I felt quite alert to all the subtle differences between the two books. And they are quite subtle because Either/Or is a lot of the same – it’s Selin making her way through her second academic year at Harvard, commenting on everything and anything that interests her, from literature and film to larger philosophical questions. It is meandering and slow and this will frustrate many readers who don’t like these ‘literary’ reflective books. But as Selin herself remarks (and we suspect Batuman too, whose role seems to become even more metafictional over the course of the book), why are science and history books allowed be boring but other books aren’t? And also, why can’t a literary work be overly personal and specific and navel-gazing? Does Batuman have to make up characters and events off the top of her head or can she just rename people in her past and describe her observations? Is that a novel? Is it a good novel? I would conclude – with Batuman I presume – that yes, it can and does. But using Selin to ask these questions about her own writing is certainly an interesting way to comment on criticism of your novel even before it’s even happened.

But yes, this book feels more ‘grown-up’, not least because of Selin’s sexual awakening. I definitely preferred the second half of it, where it moves away from Ivan-obsession. Batuman does a wonderful job of describing the mania of being in love in the first part – especially with someone that doesn’t love you back. For example, Selin describes finding that every single one of the lines from André Breton’s Nadja seems to apply directly to her life (we’ve all been there, although for most of us it was probably the lyrics of a song rather than a French novel from 1928). Overall, I think if you liked The Idiot, you’ll like this one too. Batuman draws profound observations out of the life of this Harvard teenager, and it is also funny and enjoyable and meandering and a strange approach to novel-writing. I will be reading further instalments for sure.

Telephone by Percival Everett

I read this novel in a heady twenty-four-hour daze, which is something I rarely do these days. I even stayed up to read it, which is something this sleep-deprived mama really does rarely do. So while I felt very emotionally connected to and shattered by this book, looking back I don’t remember much about it, kind of like I read it in a dream. So that’s… helpful, I’m sure!

One of the first things to note is that this book has three versions with three endings, only one of which I’ve read. I’m definitely going to look out for the other copies (there are subtle cover differences) so I can read the other endings, but I thought this was an extremely interesting way to go about publishing a book. Everett is a prolific author (he has written 23 novels!) and it seems he is often considered a bit underrated; a hidden gem, if you will. This did get shortlisted for the Pulitzer in 2021 though, so he is hardly an unknown. Certainly, this was a very clever book with excellent, controlled prose, though much of this went right over my head as I devoured it (this lithub review is a really excellent, in-depth piece and if you read the book I highly recommend it). In short, it’s about paleobiologist/geologist Zach, who learns that his daughter has a degenerative disease, turning life into a game of telephone. I think it was this parenting aspect that really struck me, but there were so many interesting layers to this book that I think I will reread it when I can get my hands on the other copies. It is a little meandering, a little nonsensical and bizarre and discomfiting, but I found it to be a profound and sensitive (and unusual!) portrayal of parenthood, grief and morality. I’m only sorry I can’t really do it much justice in my review.

White Noise by Don DeLillo

I forgot how totally weird Don DeLillo is. And this – one of his most famous novels – is no exception. It follows Jack Gladney, a professor of Hitler studies in ‘The-College-on-the-Hill’. Gladney has a large family cobbled together with children from both his and his wife’s past marriages, and he also has an unusually strong fear of death. Needless to say, this was an interesting take on academia and parenting when read back-to-back with Telephone. These novels were completely different, but equally interesting. A little way into the book, there is an ‘Airborne Toxic Event’ which Gladney and his family flee, forcing him to confront his greatest fear. Each scene is richly and absurdly painted, as DeLillo explores the disorientation inherent in American consumerism and the simultaneous rise of technology. The dialogue is particularly fantastic, and DeLillo’s dark humour serves to lighten its intensity from time to time, particularly his caustic takedown of academia. I can’t say I enjoyed every moment, as it is given over entirely to its own cleverness (that’s postmodernism for you!), but it is a small masterpiece that would bear re-reading. I’m sure you’d find something new every time.

The Good

Duck Feet by Ely Percy

Duck Feet was a lovely, heart-warming novel with lots to like about it. It is set in the mid-noughties in Renfrew and Paisley, and follows Kirsty Campbell through a few school years of her life. It’s written in the local dialect (might take you a few pages to get into the flow!) and is a pretty accurate portrayal of life as a teenager with all of its joys, firsts and heartaches, as well as exploring the realities of working-class life. I felt sometimes this portrayal was just a touch too realistic at times, abandoning some of the potential of a novel, where you can reflect and experiment beyond everyday observances (there were a couple moments involving dreams which I marked down) but I think this is probably mostly reader preference on my part. I do think you would be hard pushed not to feel for the characters and feel moved by its bittersweet end. Though the ending did give me pause in some respects as to how well it fit with the rest of the novel. One of my more pressing problems with this book though is that it felt overlong. Again, this is probably a part of the realism element - in that it shows all that goes into a life - but I did find it to drag a bit, especially through the middle. Overall, I liked it and I think that it has lots of popular appeal, particularly for those of us who were in high school around this time. The nostalgia is real!

Ordinary Monsters by J. M. Miro

This historical fantasy has been billed as the next blockbuster trilogy, and I can see why it has publishers so excited, not least because I could sense a forthcoming film/tv adaptation just in the writing. It follows a number of ‘talents’ - orphaned children with peculiar powers – who are mysteriously gathered at an institute claiming to shelter and educate them just outside of Edinburgh in an alternate Victorian timeline. We travel all over in this book, from Mississippi to London to Tokyo, as Miro weaves together a complex and interesting plot. This isn’t one of those first-in-the-trilogy books where everything is set up and nothing much happens, either (looking at you, Book of Koli). There is lots of action here and plenty to think about. This novel is a little baggy, though, and apart from an excellent and striking Tokyo section, it lost me in the middle. I just didn’t feel that desperate desire to pick it up that you feel with all the best books, especially in this genre. But by the time we got into the last couple hundred pages, it gripped me again, and whilst I was unsure whether I’d pick up number two at some points, the ending had me hungry for more. So it’s a bit untidy, but the writing was there were some really remarkable moments. I think lots of people will like this one, you might just have to push through a couple hundred pages in the middle there. Uneven, but affecting.

The Not-So-Great

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

This book is about a father, Theo, and his young son, Robin, who seems to have some ADHD and autism combination which makes his insights into the world fascinating, but his behaviour challenging at times. Robin’s mother was an environmental activist and her values run strong through her son, who finds the suffering of all ‘sentient beings’ and the desecration of the environment to be almost completely unbearable. But Theo is uneasy about putting Robin on medication, and luckily stumbles upon a kind of answer; he enters his son into a trial for ‘neurofeedback’, where he will be tasked with mimicking the brain patterns of people in more calm mental states, including his own mother’s. I went back and forth with this book. It is overly sentimental, for sure. And the ending is questionable on that front from various points of view, from its literary merit through to its depiction of neurodivergence and disability. Indeed, perhaps even the concept of the neurofeedback might be difficult for neurodivergent readers, for Robin becomes a different child; more calm and collected, able to control his emotions and outbursts, almost inhumanly so. And what do its anti-medication sensibilities mean for those who find their medication to be lifesaving and important? I do really love the way Powers integrates science into his novels though, he always makes me think and brings new things to my attention. Theo being an astrobiologist (yes, yet another male professor and child book for me this month! It seems to be a theme), there was lots of interesting stuff in here. For one thing, this book is certainly better than Flowers for Algernon, which it seems to be reworking with the trajectory of Robin’s problems (little spoiler there for those of you who have read that novel, though I don’t recommend it). But overall although I found myself reading to the end, I think it is pretty flawed and urge you to approach it with caution.

Out by Natsuo Kirino trans. by Stephen Snyder

I was very excited about this book based on its blurb. A fed-up wife murders her husband in a fit of rage and her colleagues at her depressing night shift factory job decide to help her dismember the body and do away with it. Alas, its execution didn’t quite live up to its promising start. I think it was partly my own fault. For some reason I expected this novel to be a bit more ‘literary’ I suppose (perhaps it was the heavy reference to the feminist themes on the cover), but although there were movements in that direction, it turned mostly into a fairly straightforward crime novel. And quite a long, drawn-out one at that. With possibly the worst ending in the world tacked on the end. Feminist themes straight out the window. I think it had a lot of potential and stuff to work with but didn’t quite follow through for me. It was still an okay read and I did finish it so I did want to see what would happen next, but I didn’t find myself reaching for it as one should with a good crime.

Equinox by David Towsey

This book had such potential for me, but I ended up being a bit disappointed by it. It is about a world in which two people share the same body; in our case we are following Christophor, who knows only the night, and Aleksander, his ‘day-brother’. Christophor is a ‘Special Inspector’ who is tasked with finding the perpetrator of some terrible supernatural crimes in a small village far from the capital. It is detective story, folk horror and fantasy all rolled into one, this book. I found the writing and atmosphere to be somehow compelling. It had its clunky moments but in general I was taken in my Towsey’s world. Of course, being me, I would have liked to see more of what it means to share a body, to only ever experience the night-time, how the world’s structures differ from ours to accommodate this on a more existential level, but I don’t think that was the point of this book and that’s fair enough. In general I thought the world-building was nicely done with a light touch so it didn’t feel like there were too many info-dumps. Ultimately though, after a strong atmospheric start, the book began to drag, especially in the second half and the ending was rushed and chaotic. I’d like to see what Towsey publishes next as I felt he really gripped me in the first half and perhaps the next novel might be better in its pacing and conclusion, which are two of the most difficult things with a novel I feel.